


inverted

by athenasdragon



Category: Uprooted - Naomi Novik
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, F/M, Hinted Agnieszka/The Dragon, Vignette, no plot but also no porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-26 00:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athenasdragon/pseuds/athenasdragon
Summary: Two snapshots from a version of the book where every village in the valley has a wizard and their Lord is an ordinary man. The Dragon, the wizard tasked with protecting Dvernik from the Wood, is saddled with an unwilling apprentice in the form of Agnieszka, daughter of the Lord of the Valley.Chapter 1: First meeting. Chapter 2: Trying one of Jaga's spells in preparation for an assault on the Wood, several months later.





	1. First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Alternate title: PUT YOUR THING DOWN FLIP IT AND REVERSE IT

At the edge of Dvernik, some way down the road and almost hidden by a copse of trees, lay a cottage.

Even at just a cursory glance, this cottage was different from its neighbors. Its walls were painted a clean, smooth white, though they lacked the small bright painted flowers that curled around some of the windows in the village. The thatching of the roof ended in a neat edge. There was no herb garden huddled against the stoop, no vines climbing up the walls or flowers dotting an untidy patch of grass; there were only two rows of evergreen shrubs, bisected by a cobbled path that led from the door to the road.

The morning of the harvest festival, bright purple smoke issued from the little cottage’s chimney. Inside, a man in pristine clothing bent over a pot bubbling on the fire—he would have sneered at anyone who called it a cauldron—and frowned. This year’s offering had to be perfect. After all, the Lord of the Valley would be bringing his family with him for the first time as he made his rounds from village to village to collect his yearly tribute, including his eldest son in line to inherit his title. The wizards of the other towns along the Spindle would be putting their best feet forward.

And yet, infuriatingly, this potion was refusing to proceed the way he intended it. It should have been bright fuschia by now and condensing into a jam-textured lump at the bottom of the pot. Instead, it remained obstinately plum-colored and runny, emitting vibrant purple smoke that filled the interior of the cottage with an overpowering scent of leather and too-sweet wine.

The Dragon scrubbed at his face with his hands before making a sharp gesture over the pot, vanishing its contents except for the faint lingering smell. He had been too busy holding the line against the Wood—sleepless nights spent patrolling the edge of the trees and burning back the strange, twisted weeds that seemed to advance afresh every morning, only to stagger back to his cottage just as some townsperson or other would knock at his door and ask for help with a sick child or a missing cow or a blighted crop.

This spell was supposed to be a simple one, but he should have known better than to ever think that one of Jaga’s spells could be simple. “Stir clockwise and counter-clockwise”—at the same time? One after the other? In alternating strokes? How many times did it need to be stirred?

The Dragon flipped open the journal once more as though new annotations might have appeared since the last time he opened it. The scrawled title seemed to taunt him: _for cooperation and collaboration_. He had thought to present it as a tool to aid negotiations with the neighboring Lords. If only the spell would cooperate with _him_.

Scowling, he closed the book and tossed it onto the table. He didn’t have time to begin again anyway; he would have to think of something else before his Lord arrived at dusk. He turned to one of the two bookshelves that stood on either side of the fireplace and began running his finger over the spines.

* * *

 

The festival was a lively event. The people of Dvernik heaped their offerings into their Lord’s enormous cart—one of the ones he loaned to each town to aid with the harvest on the condition that it be returned full of his share of their crops. Sacks of oats and wheat were soon hidden underneath the first early potatoes and beets. Someone contributed a crate of wild mushrooms and another full of rattling jars of vodka.

Meanwhile, the young people of the village danced and spun around the bonfire while their younger siblings clapped out a rhythm. Their parents and grandparents clustered together on old blankets or chairs carried out from houses, drinking and eating and smiling and laughing at the makeshift music and the rustling of bare feet on grass.

The Dragon sat aside. He had spread a fine brocade blanket under a tree that shielded him from the end-of-summer sun. Though the townspeople nodded politely enough when he took his small share of their feast, he could feel their mistrustful gazes on him as he turned the pages of his book and waited. When he caught a small child staring, he held up an apple on his palm and spoke a stern command. “ _Lirintalem_.” The peel turned wrinkled and crisp as a puff of steam burst from the top of the fruit; it smelled like a midwinter feast, all spices and firelight. The child’s eyes widened and they turned away. The Dragon smiled sourly; happy as the people of Dvernik were when he saved their crops with his magic, they were deeply distrustful of his enchanted food.

He had only taken a few bites of his baked apple when one of the men near the road raised a cry: “Our Lord approaches!”

The Dragon placed the mostly-untouched food on his plate, muttered a cantrip to clean his hands, and adjusted the front of his jerkin as he stood. The book remained by his plate; the spell he had chosen was a familiar one, and he had been studying it all day. He would not need the reference.

The Lord of the Valley was a tall man. The Dragon stood most of a head shorter than him, and even the man’s youngest, his only daughter, would have had to duck her head to match the wizard’s height. His stature, however, was limited to the physical; he had the geniality and deferential manners of a woodcutter, a fact often remarked upon with affection by his people. Perhaps he was humbled by the knowledge that it was the wizards of the villages who truly maintained order and protected the Valley, or perhaps he was simply one of those men who was so good-natured to his core that even a lifetime of nobility failed to distinguish him substantially from the common people. Whatever the reason, the Dragon had to admit that the man was well-loved, even if he himself found his Lord’s ever-present smile vaguely irritating. There was a collective sound of joy from the townspeople as the group disembarked from a well-made but slightly worn carriage.

A few young women gathered anxiously behind Danka as she stepped forward to greet the Lord and his family. They had no chance of being chosen to wed his eldest son, of course, but they smiled shyly at his brothers. The men, apparently unsure of how to respond to such obvious flirtation, cast their gazes nervously around the scene.

“Danka!” the Lord cried, extending a hand to shake that of the headwoman. “I hope that you have been well, and that Dvernik has prospered this last year.”

The older woman almost completely masked her surprise as she accepted the handshake. “Yes, my lord. I believe that you will be happy with your tribute.”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Oh, the business can come later. I have brought my family with me, to show them something of the Valley and so that my people may know their faces. Please, continue the celebration! No, no need to fuss,” he added, deflecting Danka’s offers for chairs and cushions. “We can make ourselves comfortable. Ah! And here is the Dragon, of course! I look forward to your tribute later tonight, my friend. The Falcon put on a dazzling show for us last night in Olshanka, but something tells me that you might just outdo him.”

The Dragon swallowed back an observation that Solya’s magic tended towards being all dazzle with no substance and bowed instead. “I hope that I will not disappoint you, my lord.”

He found himself obligated to stand near his Lord’s family for most of the evening, for the man kept directing comments and quips to him every time he tried to slip away back to his own seat. Eventually, he folded his arms behind his back, planted his feet, and let his gaze unfocus as he watched the dancing of the bonfire.

“Nieshka, you’re getting that all over your skirt. Why don’t you eat over your handkerchief?”

The voice belonged to the Lord of the Valley’s wife, who was brushing crumbs from her daughter’s skirt with a thin hand. The Dragon looked down at the girl: a tall, gangling thing, her brown hair coiled at the back of her head in more of a haphazard knot than a plait and her legs kicked out in front of her to display a skirt that was stained with more than just the latest layer of crumbs.

She frowned at her mother and shifted so that her legs were out of reach. “I lost my handkerchief in Olshanka,” she explained, and finished the pastry in her hand in two large bites.

Her mother sighed, and the Dragon had to agree with the sentiment. It was unseemly for a noble girl to behave in such a way. Perhaps her father ran his household with the manners of a woodcutter as well as the demeanor of one.

Fortunately, this disdainful line of thinking was cut off before it led to more overtly treasonous sentiments when the Lord of the Valley stood and clapped his hands together.

“Excellent, excellent! Danka, I really must congratulate you on another excellent harvest. It looks as though it has been a plentiful year, and the people of Dvernik do credit to our valley. Our travels have been long, however, and I think that the thoughts of my family turn towards their beds. Perhaps the Dragon would care to provide his tribute…?”

The Dragon nodded his assent and strode around so that he stood facing the Lord’s family, his back to the fire. As though synchronized by some unseen director, the townspeople stepped back to give him space to work. He watched the reflected firelight dance in the eyes before him for a moment. The Lord was eager, his wife almost apprehensive; in the eyes of their sons, the Dragon saw a hunger for more of the miracles that had been performed for them in the other villages along the Spindle. Their daughter, however—her eyes glittered with intent, her gaze steady and firm.

Eyes slipping closed, the Dragon called to mind the complex diagram he had studied earlier that day. He held his hands out before him, palms facing up, and began the incantation. Each word fell from his lips like a stone, dropping into his upturned hands and filling them with heavy magic. When he opened his eyes, he thought he could see the phantom outline of the accumulation, glowing softly in the dark. This was no haphazard snarl of energy, however; the subtle intonations of his chant directed the power to align itself according to the diagram in the book for maximum effect.

With a snap of his wrists, the Dragon brought his hands up as though they cupped either side of a large sphere. The magic fizzled and sparked—not visibly, of course—and spun down into a marble of pure, malleable energy suspended between his palms. Now the difficult part: with each word he tugged and shaped the magic until suddenly the ghostly image of a golden rose blossomed in his cupped hands.

A gasp went up from several observers, including at least two of the lord’s sons. They were easily impressed. The spell looked pretty, but it did nothing; it was a feat of prestidigitation, meant to dazzle and enchant. He had to bite back his anger that he had not been able to prepare a better tribute, that he had bet his luck on Jaga’s spellbook when he knew that her spells never worked out.

Instead of allowing the frustration to flare into his magic, he kept it dammed back with a careful smile as he stepped forward and bent down so that the lord and his wife could better examine the flower. They both leaned in, eyes wide with delight, the golden glow illuminating their faces from below.

“Nieshka, look at this!” The Lord of the Valley gestured to his daughter. “What do you think?”

The girl—her face thin, too, and smudged with dirt like a peasant—tilted her head to the side. “An illusion spell?” she asked, and the Dragon dipped his head in a shallow nod without halting the incantation that supported the flower. “It is… beautiful.”

She reached out with one finger and touched a petal. As she did, something nudged at the edge of the spell, questioning, pushing. The Dragon furrowed his brow and tightened the working, but before he could end the spell a wave of magic came crashing through it, threatening to topple his careful construction and forcing him to drop to his knees as he held desperately onto the shape of his working.

The girl looked at him, her expression one of open surprise, and somewhere beneath the part of his mind that was being flooded with unfamiliar magic, he realized that this was her doing. Her magic felt like the Spindle as it unfroze in the spring: wild and stinging but joyous somehow as if its very flow was a restoration of the natural order of things, sweeping up anything in its path and bending its direction to only the broadest slopes of the land.

The current swelled and swirled he could feel the energy bubbling out from them both, threatening to spill over and wash across the entire festival, but then the sensation changed to one of her spell threading his like a needle—a rough, raw maneuver that hunched him further with the force of it. Magic swelled between his hands, the rose overblown now and too sweet-smelling, and then she reached for the stem and came away holding a perfectly mundane flower as the working halted without warning.

The Dragon gasped, his lungs starved from forcing the illusion incantation out through gritted teeth, and the sound and smell and warmth of the fire seemed to return to him all at once. All around him, everyone joined him in staring, dumbfounded, at the scrawny daughter of their lord.

He snatched the flower from her hand without thinking anything of it. It was a rose, still, but its petals were tangible and velvety and clear liquid oozed from the stem where it had been snapped from its bush. It was wine-dark with lighter flecks all across the bloom; he recognized it from the gardens of the Tower where the Lord of the Valley kept residence. He had seen these flowers in passing once when he had first been sent to meet his lord and had noted the unusual pattern.

The girl was staring at the flower, too, when he looked up to examine the face of the witch who had just channeled a corporeal summoning through the framework of an illusion spell. She was still thin, her features too sharp and plain to be attractive; nothing in her expression spoke of power. And yet the evidence to the contrary rested cool and damp in his grasp.

The Lord of the Valley’s expression shifted slowly from surprise to unease as the Dragon looked next to him. So he’d had an ulterior motive for bringing his family with him this time. Reckless, _reckless_ to allow his daughter to flash her power among the people like this—she was clearly untrained and a botched spell could have had consequences beyond just her family’s reputation.

“Come with me.” Improper though it was, the sentence came out as an order. “We need to discuss this further.”


	2. "For Cooperation and Collaboration"

Preparing the Valley for a concerted attack on the Wood was an arduous task. First, Sarkan had ridden to Kralia to collect some of the rarer ingredients he would need for his workings, and after that long trip he had visited every wizard in the Valley to enlist their assistance. Unhappy though he was to leave Agnieszka in the sole charge of his cottage, it was absolutely necessary that someone remain to maintain the workings that held the Wood at bay and prevent any curious villagers from poking around in things they were not prepared to deal with.

His cottage was a welcome sight as he finally rode through Dvernik and around the bend in the road, changed though it was in the last few months. As soon as the weather had begun to turn with the end of winter, his unenthusiastic apprentice had escaped outside as often as possible to find work for her busy hands. The lean-to against the side wall was stacked full of drying wood collected from the forest; green sprouts of various shades and shapes poked up from a freshly-turned garden placed strategically to receive the morning sun; a few of the windowsills were dotted with red and blue and yellow painted flowers. It was messy, asymmetric—but he found it difficult to convince himself that the changes were entirely unwelcome.

As he came inside, Agnieszka was sitting at the table, her hands stained purple from the fruit piled high in a basket at her elbow. One forefinger was in her mouth and the other traced a line of writing in a book open before her. As usual, she was unrecognizable as the daughter of the Lord of the Valley, dressed in a simple ragged peasant’s frock and with her hair loose around her shoulders. She looked up as the door opened; Sarkan found it difficult not to return the brilliant smile she gave him. Instead, he vanished the mud spatters that reached up past the knees of his trousers with a cantrip and began removing his gloves.

“Studying, I hope?”

She laughed, bright and cheerful, and her wild hair flew as she threw her head back. “The roads must be even muddier than the forest, and that’s saying something. I nearly ruined my boots this morning.”

Sarkan frowned. “It’s dangerous to be out now that the Wood is aware of the threat we pose. What were you doing?”

“Collecting fruit.” She gestured to the basket next to her on the table. “I’ve been looking at more of Jaga’s spells and I think I’ve found one that might help us cast Luthe’s Summoning better.”

He went around the table so that he could lean over her shoulder and read. A short laugh escaped him when he read the title, scrawled in a messy hand at the top of the page: _for cooperation and collaboration_. “You shouldn’t have risked it. I’ve tried this spell before. It does nothing.”

Agnieszka cast him a quizzical look. “Who did you try it with?”

“What do you mean? I tried it alone.” Sarkan shucked his coat, unnecessary now in the close heat of the fire-warmed cottage. Everything seemed to be in some semblance of order, though he shuddered to think of the state of Agnieszka’s cellar room.

She startled him by laughing again, louder this time. “Well what did you expect a spell for cooperation to do on one person?”

Sarkan froze, his frown equal parts thoughtful and displeased. “Are you suggesting that the act of creating the potion is, itself, the working?”

“Yes! One person stirs it clockwise and the other counterclockwise. What were you going to do, eat it?”

“It doesn’t specify any of that in the journal,” he retorted to cover the fact that that was precisely what he had intended.

“Well, it won’t hurt to try it again, right? You know how well Jaga’s spells have worked for me in the past. I think the intent is more important than anything else.”

Sarkan sighed. “Very well. You have not run into any problems here? Nothing I need to address?”

“ _No_ , thank you for asking. Now, if we gather the rest of our ingredients today, we will be ready to begin tomorrow at dawn as Jaga suggests.” Agnieszka pointed at the relevant line in the journal for emphasis. “I have the wild fruit and water from the Spindle. There are a few herbs in the garden that should be sufficient. We just need honey.”

“It’s the wrong season for honey.”

“Jerzy has a jar that he’s been saving for the spring market,” she returned triumphantly. She stood and went to the cupboard, where she cast a quick spell with a flick of her wrist before opening the door. Recognizing her magic, it opened to show her possessions, just as it would have shown Sarkan’s had he done the same. She retrieved a small pouch of burgundy velvet and fished out a sapphire about twice as large as her thumbnail. “Give him this for it,” she directed, pressing it into Sarkan’s palm—it was impossible for him to ignore how his heart jumped when her hand touched his, but he shoved the observation aside regardless. “It’s a hundred times more than he would get from a traveling merchant—enough to make him and his family comfortable for a while.”

“Yes, _my lady_.” Ignoring her eye roll, Sarkan obediently closed his hand around the jewel. He suspected that it would be the most valuable object the man had ever seen. Useful for a working, too, if he could convince her to part with another—

“The people here still fear me,” Agnieszka murmured, cutting off his thoughts. “They still see me only as the daughter of their lord, and as an unfamiliar witch. It’s not a combination that inspires ease of conversation.” She smiled at him—or rather past him, to herself really—and he found himself wondering whether she would have found any more acceptance at the Tower. From her family, perhaps, but certainly not from the servants. Dvernik must have been a taste of freedom soon lost to isolation.

“Jerzy will not be pleased to see me at his door, either, but he will be pleased to see this.” Sarkan held up the sapphire. “Start some food, will you? I’ll be back in a moment with the honey.” And he went back into the street, coatless for the short walk on legs stiff from riding.

* * *

 

“Sarkan.”

The sound did not wake him up so much as the sensation of his name in her mouth; he started in his narrow cot and sat up to see Agnieszka outlined dimly against the waning fire.

“It’s almost dawn.”

He took a deep breath and tried to swallow the panic that had flooded him at being awoken so. “Yes, very well.”

The working seemed to run smoothly—at least, Agnieszka insisted that they were making progress, hard though it was for him to see. They boiled the fruit she had collected in the forest with the river water as dawn broke over the valley. When a square of pale sunlight finally rested on the table beneath the window, they set aside their tea and porridge and brought the pot from the fire to rest in the sun. Agnieszka sprinkled in a few green pieces from the garden, ignoring Sarkan’s tired insistences that it should really matter _which_ herbs were used, and then they each took a wooden spoon and stirred in opposite directions.

The effect was immediate: the color shifted from deep purple to a bright fuschia. They stirred until Agnieszka decided that they should stop—on another cue hidden to Sarkan—and she returned the pot to the fire, spooning in generous heaps of honey from the jar. Sarkan sat and watched and stretched his legs before the warmth to try and relieve the discomfort of his long journey.

Agnieszka kept a careful eye on the potion. In little enough time, it had bubbled down to the consistency described in Jaga’s notes. Not once did it emit any of the colorful steam which had plagued Sarkan’s earlier attempt, much to his irritation.

By early afternoon, Agnieszka announced the working finished and pulled the pot off of the fire to show Sarkan the contents. A bright, sticky mess was all that met his inspection.

“And you think that this will help us cast Luthe’s Summoning more effectively?” he asked, doubt evident in his voice.

“I don’t see why not. Should we try it now?”

He thought of the radiant light that they would conjure between them, shining through their figures like water and laying bare their innermost secrets. He thought of the certainty visible in her expression and the fears she no doubt hid, of the seed of affection that had obstinately taken root in his ribcage and the way it squeezed his heart when she said his name. He thought of the way they stood next to each other in companionable silence as they stirred the potion and he thought of his own terror, black and freezing, at the memory of being burned from the inside out in the heart tree.

“Perhaps later,” he said finally. “We have much to prepare.”

“All right.”

“Agnieszka?” She turned in surprise; it was the first time he had spoken her name aloud. “That was a good working. I may not understand how you did it, but it’s… sturdy.”

She grinned. “We make a good team.”


End file.
